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All age worship 3rd May 11.15am

Here is the link to start our service tomorrow.

For those who want to join in the action you will need some space around your computer (others are welcome to watch if you don’t feel too active).

There will be challenges, games, lots of fun as well as worship.

Hope to see you tomorrow

Jacqueline xx

PS it’s not too late to send your photo’s of Jesus in your home & we can all look at them tomorrow!

Topic: All Age Worship

Time: May 3, 2020 11:00 AM London

Click on the link below to join the meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89655700442?pwd=MlNicDJ0SGdGN0VyeFBRaXVQUldndz09

Meeting ID: 896 5570 0442

Password: 702750

Parish Magazine – May 2020

Welcome to the May edition of the #Meltham Parish Magazine. We hope and pray that you are all keeping well. Speaking of which, this month, we’re launching a #melthamprays prayer campaign which you can join in both at home and on social media – (see page 15). Don’t forget VE day (pg 9) and find out how our Crossroads Centre and Foodbank has been getting on in these difficult times.

As ‘social distancing’ continues, we are still unable to get this edition distributed in hard copy so please feel free to share/forward this around to those who (under the current circumstances) may not receive this, obviously keeping to social distancing guidelines.

Have you started your craft for this week?

I’ve got a couple of photo’s through for our all age service on Sunday! So excited to see yours! (Send it to me on jacqueline.france@interface.com).

Here’s one of Jesus getting involved in someone’s communications!!

Where has Jesus been in your home???!!!

Much love

Jacqueline xx

For children, young people & the young at heart!!

On Sunday 3rd May at 11.15am will be an All AGE Worship service & we have LOTS of fun planned for this one!

We will have active challenges (so please leave some space around your computer as you will NOT be sitting down for the whole of this service!), games, dancing and a talk from a BIG popstar!

We also have a CRAFT for you to do this week at home! The instructions can be found here:

https://www.mylittlehouse.org/uploads/2/1/0/0/21005170/easter_files_model.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0OGMR_d3EjUKr59xBygv8ym-Mbx1CYteOcoJWMVelUHPZoYsGZ-lmblUg

Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to make the craft idea (in the next email) and take pictures of the finished ‘craft’ around your home! Then please email your pictures to me (jacqueline.france@interface.com) & I will show them during the service on Sunday. They may even appear in the next Parish magazine!!!!

EVERY-ONE can have at go at this (even if you don’t make it to the service). BUT it would be lovely to have all the children and young people join in & come & have a bit of fun on Sunday.

Much love to all

Jacqueline xx

11am DAILY PRAYERS (or any alternative time)

Hello everyone,

Christine and I went into voluntary isolation on the 16th March. This past weekend took us over 40 days and nights.

Jesus faced his 40 days and nights wilderness period alone and overcame by giving every trial he faced to his Father in Heaven. 

We still can’t believe it, that our world turned on its head so quickly, so unexpectedly.

One moment, everything normal, proceeding much as it had always done before, and the next, chaos and confusion, everything overturned in an instant – institutions teetering on the brink, certainties crumbling into dust, lives descending into mayhem.

People have reached the stage where they are asking when will it end, when will this nightmare be over?

We were told things would get worse before they could get better; that the death toll would rise and the number of those infected continue to climb, despite every measure being taken to prevent it.  We are promised also that, eventually, this disease will peak, and that we can then slowly start picking up the pieces of our lives again.

As Christians we have been praying and showing compassion both in word and deed for family, friends and neighbours. We give thanks to God for the support Christine and I have received.

We thank God for the number of you joining with us at 11.00am each day. (or anytime for those who find 11am not possible.)  The temptation is to feel that our prayers are inadequate.  So we share with you another prayer for the coming week. You might like to add this prayer to the others you received.

When our prayers feel so inadequate

They feel so inadequate, our prayers, Lord, so small a response to so great a crisis. Even if we could find the words we seek to sum up our concern, express our fears, articulate our needs and entrust into your care the many we know to be at risk, even then, our efforts would seem lacking.

But we can’t get anywhere near that, our entreaties to you being muddled, halting, confused, disjointed. We do not know what to say or how to say it; what to pray or how to pray it, and we are left feeling we have failed ourselves, you and others.

Do not let that deter us, Lord. Teach us that you heed not only the words of our lips but also the thoughts of the heart, prayer not being an exam we must pass but an opportunity to embrace.

Help us, then, simply to share with you, as best we can, what we are feeling, so committing ourselves, our loved ones, and the world beyond, sincerely into your keeping. Amen.

Keep Safe.  Keep praying and like Jesus taking all your requests to God our Father.

Peter

Weekly Bulletin for Sunday 26th April

On the Road to Emmaus

Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.

Luke 24:13-16a (NIV)

Why didn’t the two people in todays gospel reading recognise Jesus? Why is it that we often do not see Jesus walking alongside of us in our own lives until we look back?

Perhaps sometimes it could be that we aren’t really looking but it can’t be God’s inability to make himself known. In many ways it would be much easier, for both us and God, if he always made us know he was there and what he was doing. So, why not? Our God is almighty, but he is also loving and gentle. He is always there and always calling us, but he doesn’t force us, he doesn’t use his power to make us follow him. He allows us to choose to have faith in him so that our faith can be based on our love for him which is our response to his love for us. He is gentle and patient, he lets us ask questions and forgives our mistakes, and we can trust that he is always there whether we see him or not.

Reverend John (Vicar)

Following recent guidelines from the Church of England and the government.

All churches will be closed for public worship until further notice. This now includes private prayer and funerals. Funerals can still be held at the crematorium and at the grave side with a maximum of ten mourners.

All weddings are postponed until further notice.

Website

Our parish communion will be posted on our website www.melthamparish.co.uk this will be pre-recorded but Rev John will be repeating the service at 10:30am so that it may be considered spiritually live. Please join in if you are able.

Evening service 6:00pm Sunday 26th April

This service will be delivered live through Zoom.

Zoom is an easy to install and easy to use app that is free to download and can by used by any type of computer. Just google Zoom and you should find instructions. You will then need to check our website for the details to join the service.

Easter III – Sun 26th April @ 6pm – On-line ZOOM Service of the Word

You’re invited to join our evening ZOOM service – God of peace.

We look forward to seeing you on Sunday 26th April at 6pm.

Topic: Evening service – God of peace.

Time: Apr 26, 2020 06:00 PM London

Please click the link below at 6pm on 26th April to join the Zoom service:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86402025366?pwd=TjFCTndwQkp0WHZqNTkyMi9INmJRZz09

Meeting ID: 864 0202 5366

Password: 450735

3rd Sunday of Easter – Parish Communion – On-line

Hallelujah, Christ is Risen!
He is Risen indeed, Hallelujah!

Join us for our on-line Parish Communion at 10:30am for the 3rd Sunday of Easter – Sunday 26th April. This can be viewed at any time but Rev’d John will conduct the service at the vicarage at this time to make the worship spiritually live. The service words will appear on the video to enable you to join in easily.

The service can be viewed here via YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hm4xEedN0Y

The Zoom service will take place this evening, further details to follow.

11am DAILY PRAYERS (or any alternative time suitable to you)

Hello everyone

Nick Fawcett served as a Baptist minister for thirteen years, and as a chaplain with the national charity Toc H for three, before deciding to focus on a writing ministry, backed up by editing, both of which he continues with today, despite wrestling with myeloma, an incurable cancer of the blood, that places him in the highest possible risk category during the current coronavirus crisis.  Like so many, he will be isolated at home to protect his health. His aim, increasingly, is to write material free of religious jargon that reaches out to people of all faiths and none.

Here in Meltham over many years now Christine and I have found his material both inspirational and easy to follow.

His response to the pandemic was to write a book of prayers ‘For a Time Such As This’

He asks are you struggling to pray at the moment? I am. You want to bring your fears before God. You want to commit yourself and your loved ones into his keeping. You want to pray for the innumerable people facing unimaginable difficulties and hardship at this time due to the pandemic that has descended so swiftly upon us. But prayer doesn’t come easily. We feel almost numbed, almost lost for words, almost as though our own little concerns (however huge they may feel to us personally) are relatively trivial in relation to the scale of the crisis now facing the world. Yet we need to pray, today, more than ever. Not that prayer will guarantee our safety or that of our loved ones, or that it will miraculously put everything right, but we need simply to seek help and strength to get through whatever the months ahead may bring.

I suggest that we start by asking God what to pray for and then continue by using the prayers of intercession. 

PRAYERS

When you’re struggling to know what to pray for

Lord, what can I pray for?    What should I say?

I’m frightened, troubled, confused, –  everything in life having been turned inside out and upside down.

Whatever words I use in prayer seem inadequate, hollow, even trite.

Help me, hold me, hear me, and at this troubled time, encircle all – myself, my loved ones, the wider world – in the warm embrace of your love. Amen.

Intercession for those struggling with the crisis, both near and far

Reach out today, Lord, to the frightened, anxious about themselves or their loved ones.

Hold them and help them.

Reach out to the isolated, the lonely, the vulnerable

Hold them and help them.

Reach out to the sick, those wrestling with the symptoms of coronavirus, those whose situation is complicated by underlying health conditions.

Hold them and help them.

Reach out to those ministering to the afflicted, offering support, comfort and treatment as best they can, but hampered by limited resources and the scale of the crisis.

Hold them and help them.

Reach out to the bereaved, those already mourning family and friends, their love and companionship snatched away.

Hold them and help them.

Reach out to those affected financially – those who have lost jobs and livelihoods, the future they took for granted now under threat.

Hold them and help them.

Reach out to the countries of our world most affected – Italy, France, Spain, Iran, China, Russia, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom – and the many places elsewhere in the world seeing an increase in infections, and facing imminent catastrophe in turn.

Hold them and help them.

Reach out, Lord, to a world in need, a world teetering on the edge of chaos, on the brink of disaster.

Hold us and help us all. Amen.

For all whose lives have been turned upside down by this crisis

I’m not praying for me today, Lord, but for others: young people meant soon to be taking exams, their future now in doubt;

Carers looking after loved ones, striving to keep safe those at risk;

Those suddenly finding themselves out of work, financial pressures added to fears over health;

Owners of small businesses, cafes, shops, bars and restaurants among many others, faced by the prospect of their livelihood collapsing in ruins, what had seemed a wise investment now a millstone around their neck;

Clergy, counsellors and chaplains, seeking to give succour and support to those reeling from recent events;

GPs, nurses, doctors, consultants, NHS staff, increasingly overwhelmed by massive pressures yet with limited resources to meet them;

Politicians and leaders in this country and beyond, trying to work out the best way forward – a way of safeguarding life as effectively as possible, while also limiting potentially devastating economic consequences for all.

Give help, Lord; give strength; guidance; wisdom.

In our hurting world, bring hope and healing, love and life. Amen.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7

Keep Safe.  Keep praying

Peter

Weekly Bulletin for Sunday 19th April

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”

John 20:19 (NIV)

As we find the disciples in todays Gospel reading, hiding behind a locked door. We should be reminded that our God does not abandon us to fear or doubt. In his love for us he comes and meets us in our need, his grace is always greater than our weakness.

As we live through a time when we find our own Church doors locked and wish to meet together to share the good news of Easter, we need to pray for patience. It was right for the disciples to wait a while until on the day of Pentecost they were filled with the Holy Spirit and empowered to share the good news in the way that God had planned.

Our God can unlock any door and will do so in his own perfect timing. We must pray that we will be ready to respond when he calls us to do so, just as the disciples were.

Reverend John (Vicar)

Following recent guidelines from the Church of England and the government.

All churches will be closed for public worship until further notice.

This now includes private prayer and funerals.

Funerals can still be held at the crematorium and at the grave side with a maximum of ten mourners.

All weddings are postponed until further notice.

Website

Our parish communion will be posted on our website www.melthamparish.co.uk this will be pre-recorded but Rev John will be repeating the service at 10:30am so that it may be considered spiritually live. Please join in if you are able.

Meltham Food Bank has become increasingly important to many people facing an uncertain future. A small group of people are responding to an increasing demand for food and access to our Mann’s Wharfe Wheels meals donated for those in need. 31 food parcels have been delivered this month. We are trying to live faithfully believing that God will supply our needs. Many people have donated money. Cash donations and money into our account are very welcome. Yesterday we had agreed we needed £150 to purchase what we needed. Three donations arrived unexpectedly this morning totalling £190. We thank God and you for your prayers and support.